Bang & Olufsen Beolab 18 Oak Lamella Floor Standing Speakers - seriously?!

ThisIsWeird

Just amooosed me as I idly searched for new speakers. 

These B&Os have - I think pretty obviously - been designed for aesthetics as the major priority, but I can accept they must also have 'decent' audio quality. But, many £k's worth of audio quality? They were nearly £10k new.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256571971129?

For a start, they are metal-bodied, hardly the best material for vibration dampening. Then they are narrow-columned, so hardly a nice resonance chamber. They contain two wee speakers, with their focus interrupted by a bunch of timber or plastic slats.

What the hell?

'Of course', the reviews gush...

DullGreyGuy

ThisIsWeird said:
They were nearly £10k new.

If they were charged that they were robbed, even buying direct from B&O they are £8,500 and many retailers offer at least £1,000 off, one company has the brass and wood version for £5,300 new (the wood front adds £1k over the plastic). 

ThisIsWeird said:
Then they are narrow-columned, so hardly a nice resonance chamber. 

In hifi speakers you dont want resonance, it's the last thing you want. The key of the cabinet is to hold the speaker firm and eliminate the inverse wave caused at the rear of the speaker. In principle there are some benefits of a cylinder for doing that, though not as good as cones which explains the £90,000 B&W Nautilus speakers:




B&O are a lifestyle brand much more than a serious hifi brand, whilst I dont like WhatHiFi the fact they've not even bothered to review them says a lot. Certainly won't be replacing my B&W 801 D4 Signature dream speakers (only to be bought if getting divorced)

Vitor

Many husbands are obliged to buy hi-fi that passes the Wife Acceptance Factor; her indoors best hi-fi is one that's 100% invisible.

That's why only proper Man Cave's have the half million quid WAMM Master Chronosonic Towers 

RumRat

All proving that the idiocy of man knows no bounds....... 🙄

ThisIsWeird

Imagine the cost of the cable to run these...

(Another funny HiFi issue...)

DullGreyGuy

RumRat said:

All proving that the idiocy of man knows no bounds....... 🙄

A long time ago there was a video of someone blindfolded listening to:

1. £100 system
2. £1,000 system
3. £10,000 system
4. £100,000 system
5. Live violinist 

Through each of the systems they played a couple of tracks from the violinist. The person then had to guess which system was which at the end. They got them all right other than the last two which they reversed but said it was a very hard call between them. 

When asked which they'd buy, if money was no object then clearly 4 but in the real world they felt 2 was by far the best return on investment. 

The rules on diminishing returns certainly applies and it's probably fairly quick where personal preferences overtake the quality differences. 

ThisIsWeird said:

Imagine the cost of the cable to run these...

(Another funny HiFi issue...)

I'm sure doorbell wire would be fine

That said, if I for some reason was willing to pay £0.5m for a pair of speakers I would probably change my speaker cable (provided for free with last speaker purchase) but more from an aesthetic point of view than thinking spending £500/m is actually going to make it sound better.

EssexExile

ThisIsWeird said:

Imagine the cost of the cable to run these...

(Another funny HiFi issue...)

I wired my house for sound in the years before wireless or Bluetooth or whatever had been invented. I used mains flex, works great. After my experiences buying a quality hi-fi from a quality hi-fi shop I am of the opinion that all hi-fi salesmen are - well, pretentious is probably the best word I can use on a public forum .

JohnB47

EssexExile said:

ThisIsWeird said:

Imagine the cost of the cable to run these...

(Another funny HiFi issue...)

I wired my house for sound in the years before wireless or Bluetooth or whatever had been invented. I used mains flex, works great. After my experiences buying a quality hi-fi from a quality hi-fi shop I am of the opinion that all hi-fi salesmen are - well, pretentious is probably the best word I can use on a public forum .

Many years ago, when I was more interested in Hi Fi, I was trialling some good speaker cables (a shop in Tottenham Court Road would lend you a set of three grades of Audioquest cable).

Out of curiosity, I also tried using some 2.5 twin and earth mains cable - using one internal cable at first and then twisting all tree together at each end. The result was really awful.

I ended up buying the most expensive of the three types of Audioquest cable - and yes, I could really hear the difference. Not sure if my hearing is as good now though.

HillStreetBlues

DullGreyGuy said:

RumRat said:

All proving that the idiocy of man knows no bounds....... 🙄

A long time ago there was a video of someone blindfolded listening to:

1. £100 system
2. £1,000 system
3. £10,000 system
4. £100,000 system
5. Live violinist 

Through each of the systems they played a couple of tracks from the violinist. The person then had to guess which system was which at the end. They got them all right other than the last two which they reversed but said it was a very hard call between them. 

When asked which they'd buy, if money was no object then clearly 4 but in the real world they felt 2 was by far the best return on investment. 

I think the results were fiddled.

DullGreyGuy

HillStreetBlues said:

DullGreyGuy said:

RumRat said:

All proving that the idiocy of man knows no bounds....... 🙄

A long time ago there was a video of someone blindfolded listening to:

1. £100 system
2. £1,000 system
3. £10,000 system
4. £100,000 system
5. Live violinist 

Through each of the systems they played a couple of tracks from the violinist. The person then had to guess which system was which at the end. They got them all right other than the last two which they reversed but said it was a very hard call between them. 

When asked which they'd buy, if money was no object then clearly 4 but in the real world they felt 2 was by far the best return on investment. 

I think the results were fiddled.

As in not telling the difference between a £100k system playing a recording of the violinist -v- the violinist playing live or the fact the reviewer said if it was their money they'd buy the £1k system? 

Its not the first or only time that its been done, Accoustic Research did "tests" (though hardly properly controlled blind tests) in the 60s, Wharfdale in the 50s etc and even with those much more basic systems a significant proportion of people were fooled. 

Assuming you like a neutral sounding system then certainly telling 1, 2 & 3 in order seems very plausible. Things clearly get more complex if you have an unbalanced system (eg £50 mp3 player into a £100 amp into £9,850 speakers)

HillStreetBlues

DullGreyGuy said:

HillStreetBlues said:

DullGreyGuy said:

RumRat said:

All proving that the idiocy of man knows no bounds....... 🙄

A long time ago there was a video of someone blindfolded listening to:

1. £100 system
2. £1,000 system
3. £10,000 system
4. £100,000 system
5. Live violinist 

Through each of the systems they played a couple of tracks from the violinist. The person then had to guess which system was which at the end. They got them all right other than the last two which they reversed but said it was a very hard call between them. 

When asked which they'd buy, if money was no object then clearly 4 but in the real world they felt 2 was by far the best return on investment. 

I think the results were fiddled.

As in not telling the difference between a £100k system playing a recording of the violinist -v- the violinist playing live or the fact the reviewer said if it was their money they'd buy the £1k system? 

Its not the first or only time that its been done, Accoustic Research did "tests" (though hardly properly controlled blind tests) in the 60s, Wharfdale in the 50s etc and even with those much more basic systems a significant proportion of people were fooled. 

Assuming you like a neutral sounding system then certainly telling 1, 2 & 3 in order seems very plausible. Things clearly get more complex if you have an unbalanced system (eg £50 mp3 player into a £100 amp into £9,850 speakers)

I do believe the results, my post was just a play on words.